


Not Quite the End of the World (The Change to Color Remix)

by SullenSiren (lorax)



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-20
Updated: 2006-05-20
Packaged: 2017-10-08 13:56:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/76326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lorax/pseuds/SullenSiren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Voldemort's dead, the trio remains, Ron realizes what they need to cope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Quite the End of the World (The Change to Color Remix)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Remix Redux IV: I Know What You Did Last Remix](http://remixredux.livejournal.com/). I drew [mollita](http://mollita.livejournal.com/), and chose to remix her trio story, _"[Not Quite the End of the World](http://www.voyeuse.net/stories/trio.htm)"_. I hope I did the original justice!

**Not Quite the End of the World (The Change to Color Remix)**

  
_". . . For frequent tears have run  
The colors from my life, and left so dead  
And pale a stuff,"  
\-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning"VIII"_

There are things you don't say out loud in times of war, Ron had learned. You don't say "I love you", because no matter how you say it, it sounds like "goodbye". And everybody tells you that you should say it often, so that you don't die regretting that you didn't say it, but that's bollocks, Ron knows, because no one wants to hear that you believe they might not live. Or that you might not. And in the end, that's all "goodbye" is. A last word in case there aren't anymore.

He's learned not to say "tomorrow" because there might not be a tomorrow, and every time the word slides off your tongue, someone flinches a little as that thought occurs to them. He's read the papers over Hermione's shoulders and seen the names of the dead and wondered how many people there promised "tomorrow", and then never lived up to it.

He's learned that you don't say how much this is changing you, and don't let on how much you see it changing everyone else. He knows that there are roles each of them must fill and he occupies the space allotted to him (Weasley temper and bluster. Jokes that aren't that funny and used at the wrong time. Arguing with Hermione.) Ron knows his place. He might have hated that place once. Hated that he was the fool in some people's eyes - but then he'd look at Harry and realize that everything in Harry's life was complicated. Shades within shades and stories that unfolded their convoluted secrets maddeningly slowly. Maybe Harry needed simple. Ron could be simple, for Harry. He could be the constant, the unchanging piece for Harry to fall back to.

He can't say exactly when it happened, but somewhere along the way he stopped resenting Harry for his fame, for his easy skill with wand and broom, for the way eyes turned when he walked. He started to be glad it wasn't him, that there was still shade on him and not the glare of light that seemed to throw Harry's every move into stark relief for all the world to gawk at. Ron knows not to say that he's sorry for Harry, though. Knows that pity isn't better than envy, and that he can't honestly say that it isn't pity, and that he's a rotten liar.

When people breakdown what they're good at, they say that Hermione is brilliant and clever, that Harry is brave and an ace flier. They pause on Ron's name and he always hears it, and in the end, they say he plays chess. In the grand scheme of things, it's not that impressive, but somewhere along the way he took that to heart.

He sees the world as a checkered board, and all the people as black and white pieces, waiting to be moved. Every decision is a gambit - an opening in a new game. He looks back over their years at school and sees how often the other side made the first move, how weak their returns were. He sees how often they should have lost, but didn't. Checked, but never mated.

Dumbledore was once the King in his mind, but that's changed. Dumbledore has become the player moving the pieces about. He is the puppeteer. He chose the sacrifices early on. And every player knows that to gain, you have to sacrifice. Victory is not achieved without some loss along the way.

Harry is their King. They are all arrayed to protect him because in the end, he's the only one who can win. Hermione is their Queen. Dangerous, but vulnerable in her way.

First year, Ron cast himself as a Knight, sacrificing himself for the good of the game.

Somehow, he'd always imagined that was how it would go. It wasn't until fifth year - Harry angry and manic and unpredictable, filled with grief and rage in equal measure, while another catastrophe drew ever closer and dreams that weren't his moved through his mind - that Ron began to wonder if maybe he wasn't a Rook instead. Freedom to move as he willed, but blocked by whatever came into his way. Freedom without power, and thus trapped as well as any other.

In Divination he wondered, sometimes, what it would be like to see the future. He wondered whether, if the Eye existed, he would have seen what the end looked like in shades of black and white, winners and losers.

When Sirius fell through the veil and Dumbledore came to rescue, Remus' arms around Harry to hold him from following, Ron saw the sacrifice of a Knight, and the protection of a King.

The King didn't know. Not really. Ron had wondered if Sirius knew. If he had stepped into the square himself and waited for his fall. Ron though that maybe on some level he had. His mother had wept afterward, for all the rude things she'd said about Sirius and all the times she'd snapped at him. It hadn't made a difference. His mother had been a pawn for two wars. Her tears didn't mean anything except that she was sad, and emotions had no merit in chess. It was a game of strategy.

Hermione listened to the Headmaster's speeches with the mind of someone who was analyzing every word for hidden meanings.

Ron watched his hands to see if they gave away where he would move the pieces, because his eyes - blue and twinkling like stars - never did.

He dreamed of death, sometimes. Of Harry emerging from the maze, Cedric's body leaden beside him, all dead limbs and gaping eyes. Hermione does too, and they'd learned that about one another the first time they fell asleep together, lying in chairs in the tomb of Grimmauld before Harry came. They'd both woken up with screams on the edge of their voices and ghosts in their eyes and looked at one another with a sort of understanding. Their nightmares didn't affect the board, didn't change anything. But it didn't keep them from coming.

Pieces fell by the wayside - in his dreams they became people again, and he wanted to cry for them, but Harry couldn't, so Ron didn't either. Hermione wept for them both. Hot wet tears that slid onto the pages of books she read that would, in the end, help teach them all how to kill better, though he knew she didn't let herself think of it that way.

Ron knows more than they think he does, and he's fine with that. Because another thing you don't say is that you've been watching this game since the beginning, and you don't know if it's possible to protect a King when, in the end, he is prophesied to fight his own battle, not hide behind his comrades and let them do it for him.

Harry is the King mostly because when the King falls, the game is over, and the side is finished. If Harry falls, no one would believe enough to win. Late at night, once, Harry told him that he didn't care if he died, so long as someone got the bastard. Ron hadn't said that if Harry died, no one would. It was another thing you didn't say.

Ron's dreams never came the nights he snuck away to be with Hermione. And neither was sure when that had finally become something they admitted to, but it quickly became something they couldn't do without. Hidden rooms and dark corners where their bodies and mouths were hot against each other and murmured words (no I love yous that meant "goodbye". Just "Yes" and "Please" and their names tangling together with the tips of their tongues and the length of their limbs) reminded them that they were still alive. He chants her name when he comes and it's the only time when he looks at her and sees _her_, and not the black and white checkerboard of the chess pieces, and the shape above her that marks her place on it. Like this, with him, she's just Hermione.

It's not what it could be, and they both know that, but it's enough. There are too many missing pieces and ghosts for it to feel complete, but they've learned how to make do. Ron knows not to say that one day things will be better, because he's not sure that they will be, and neither is she, and Hermione has always seen through him like a window pane when he tries to hide.

On the nights Harry dreams, Ron wonders sometimes if he shouldn't climb in beside him, wrap around him, and see if the dreams would fade, if the green eyes would open and look less alone. Less empty. Less like some ancient figure in the etchings of Hermione's old books, arms outstretched on the bow of a ship as some old wizard offered her up to a sea-god no one had believed in for thousands of years. The figures had waved their arms and tossed their hair and looked as if they knew all along this was their fate.

Ron always wondered if they were pawns being sacrificed, or Kings who'd been mated, and what game had begun or ended on the backs of their deaths.

But Harry began to pull away from even casual touch somewhere fifth year, as if he was drawing back to lessen the sting when he was gone from their orbit entirely, so Ron stayed away, because he didn't know anything but chess, and he didn't know what you did to convince someone that they were going to live when you weren't sure you believed it.

Ron doesn't say when he doesn't understand things. Because people think that means you're stupid, but what he means is that it's alien to him. Harry goes from angry to detached with a speed that makes Ron confused because Ron can't understand detachment. He understood the anger more easily. Ron has always felt things intensely. Anger, hate, dismay, fear, happiness. He thinks he would love the same way if he let himself - and sometimes he looks at Hermione and thinks he already does - but he's afraid of what it means to love and lose, so he doesn't. That shouldn't be as simple as he makes it out to be and it probably isn't, but Ron's found that things slip further and further away as the end of things draws closer, taking over their lives and thoughts. The distance of the world gnaws at him, because he doesn't know how to deal with distance as well as he knows how to deal with foolish, passionate emotion.

The days fade one after the other and Ron measures the time by the pieces fallen and the blankness behind Harry's eyes. By the tears on Hermione's face and the minutes it takes her to stop shaking after she comes, wrapped around him like a blanket, seeking warmth as much as giving it.

Somewhere in the back of his head, Ron is waiting for the hammer to fall and remembering stone chess pieces that left him cold on the floor. He doesn't say that. There are many things he's never said. He doesn't believe he'll ever have a chance to.

It isn't until the blue glow of Dumbledore's wand as it envelopes Voldemort's body that Ron sees a color that isn't black or white. Dumbledore speaks, but Ron can't hear, all he sees is the blue of his eyes - twinkling, still, but harder somehow, or maybe they'd always been like that and he hadn't noticed - and the blue glow of his wand, and the way his hands move - easy and deliberate, all his pieces moved into place.

He hears Harry retching and he goes to him, Hermione twinned beside him doing the same. They bookend Harry, and he wonders briefly how often this is how everyone sees them. Queen to one side, Rook to the other.

But the blue glow catches his eye and he remembers that maybe not everyone sees in black and white and premeditated moves.

Hermione thought he'd stayed because he saw her expression, and maybe he would have for just that, but Dumbledore had sent everyone home, and he saw the clearing of the board, the setup. It was time for the end game, the closing-in. And he'd stayed. To help. To be there. To finish what he'd begun.

He hadn't expected to be there when the smoke cleared. Not really.

And now he is. Following meekly at Harry's side back to the castle, Voldemort floating like a grisly blue beacon in front of them, leading their way.

There is a numbness to it all. The walk to the infirmary, the hushed words as Pomfrey appears. Ron hovers near Harry's shoulder and tastes the air around him. Dumbledore says something and Harry looks up, the blankness in his eyes giving way to fear for a moment and it almost makes Ron glad, because some part of him had wondered if everything had been emptied out of Harry in this, and left him hollow and burnt out.

But he looks at Dumbledore and the hard eyes twinkle and the old hands are hidden and Ron thinks that this is the end of a game but not of the match.

They're sent to their rooms like the children they haven't been for some time, and Ron takes a moment to smile at the oddity of it before helping Hermione tug Harry to his feet and lead him toward the Tower. Harry is between them, still and heavy against Ron's arms, and his feet move more because he hasn't the will to stop them than because he believes they should.

In the tower, Ron sees Hermione look briefly up toward the solitary girls dorms. She's the only one left, now, all the other students sent home. The board cleared of all pieces that weren't needed. He says her name and tells her she should stay with them. That she shouldn't be alone.

She agrees and it's almost a surprise. He wrestles Harry up to their room alone and the boy - man, he supposes, though it feels odd to think so - is too slight to feel this heavy. He's empty again and Ron almost can't stand to look at him. He leaves him for a moment and goes into the bathroom, yanking off his shirt because it smells of energy and bile and something that might be death--Ron isn't sure. He kicks it across the room and bites back the low sob he feels rising in his chest. Harry can't cry, so neither will Ron.

He throws up and flushes it away, then brushes his teeth and walks out to find Hermione there, near Harry, who is still staring blankly at the bed where Neville isn't, as if all he sees is the absence of what should be there.

Weariness has caught up with Ron and he is so tired he thinks maybe if he goes to sleep he'll, never wake up, but there is something else there. Something slow-curling and waking up, some realization he hasn't yet come to terms with that is keeping him awake and making him want something he can't name.

He wraps his arms around Hermione, feeling her shiver, and he thinks he starts to understand. "Same bed?" he murmurs in her ear, and she nods and kisses him hard. Ron realizes that maybe she feels it too.

She tries to make the bed bigger but it barely responds. It's almost worth laughing about, Hermione mucking up a spell, but he doesn't think he can manage just now. He tries to help her and mucks it up worse. When Harry snaps out of it and charms the bed larger with a flick and a twist from his wand, Ron almost winces, but doesn't.

When Harry crawls into the bed like it's the last place he'll ever go, the wince escapes, shuddering through Ron's body so hard he thinks he might break something, and almost wishes he would. It feels like that. Like something needs to be broken so it can be healed.

Hermione asks Harry if he's all right, and Harry snaps back that he's a hero. When she tells him he isn't, Ron wonders if being a King would be any better, but doubts it. They look to him for affirmation and he nods. "No heroes here," he echoes.

Ron watches Harry and he sees the King and Hermione chatters at Harry and he sees the Queen, and then something snaps a little. Harry stares at nothing and Ron sees _Harry_. No chess. No black and white. Hermione twitters about how they might call him the Boy Who Lived, still, and Ron jokes automatically about Harry's tendency to always live through.

It's not funny, but that doesn't matter. It's the saying it that matters.

And Harry laughs. It's manic and uneven and Ron would maybe shout with the joy of hearing it - hearing _something_ behind it - if he wasn't so tired.

Hermione talks to him, talks Harry into stretching back on the bed, into speaking, into letting her lay hands on his skin. Ron lets her because he's never been as good with words as she is. He just settles in on Harry's opposite side, listening. He lays a hand on the bare flat of Harry's stomach and Harry hisses in a breath - but doesn't move away.

He hears Hermione thanking Harry, and realizes he's thankful. He's thankful it wasn't him. He's thankful he's still here. He's thankful Harry did what Ron isn't sure if he ever could have. And when Hermione pauses, Ron tells him that. He doesn't say it as well as she would have, but he says it. And when he stops, he looks at Hermione and he knows what's going to happen, and he smiles. Lets it. Moves his hand to rest on Harry's shoulder so she can see, though he doesn't think she needs to. His other hand twines with hers, and it's wrong in all the ways that he'd been brought up to believe such things were, but it's also _right_\-- so right that he can't care about what anyone else thinks, because he knows that this is what they need. This is what Harry needs.

This is what _he_ needs.

Hermione kisses Harry and Ron can see the exact moment when Harry accepts it. When he tips his head back and meets it and gives in. When he lets himself _feel_. When Hermione pulls away, Ron leans in and claims Harry's mouth. The lips beneath his are warm and wet and needy, and when their tongues touch together, Ron presses forward, skin to skin and mouth to mouth. His hand is still on Hermione's arm, and he hears her soft, little gasps, and the low, almost pained moans Harry makes against his mouth.

He pulls Hermione down when he breaks the kiss, drawing her closer into the circle, grinning at her and joking - that's what he does - but moving her gently toward Harry.

She kisses him, and Ron lies against Harry, no space between them, Hermione hovering over them both, her mouth on Harry's, drawing low moans from him. Ron kisses his neck, runs his hand in circles on the pale, sunken stomach.

He murmurs "I love you," in Harry's ear, and they both make nearly sob from it. Because it sounds like "I love you." It doesn't sound like goodbye. He says Harry's name and he's just Harry. They're all people again, and the black and white in his head gives way to colors and shapes, and it feels like the world is moving against him again instead of keeping him at arm's length, waiting for the fall or rise of the end.

He's hard and wanting as he murmurs into Harry's ear all the things war taught him not to say, and one of Harry's hands - roving restlessly as Hermione moves against him - slides over him once, making him gasp. He meets Harry's eyes once and they're glassy and heated but _present_. No empty stare. Harry is with them. He kisses him once more and then sits up, guiding Hermione and tugging down Harry's pants until she's over him, sinking down on him.

Harry touches her, finally, and she murmurs to him and the noises he makes are half pain and half pleasure and they hit Ron in the stomach and in the cock at the same time, tears at the edges of his eyes as he lies down, twisting to feel as much of both of them as he can, and takes Harry's mouth, kissing him deep and hard.

When he pulls away finally, body pushing up against Hermione's and a stream of sounds that have nothing to do with pain anymore sounding from his lips, Ron sits up, hand stroking over Hermione as she moves, mouth murmuring how beautiful she is, how beautiful they both are. And he'd feel like a ponce for saying Harry was beautiful, but he can't care now. Can't care about anything but this and the two people still alive beside him.

He sees the signs in Hermione before she comes, and watches it break across her face, shudder through her body. When Harry follows, his body goes still and his face goes slack and peaceful. It's the expression as much as the rest that sends Ron over the edge, body shuddering through his own climax without ever having been touched.

Harry falls asleep, still and unmoving, no dreams lurking in his mind tonight. Ron kisses Hermione, promising tomorrow before they fall asleep, knowing that for them, for now, there will still be a tomorrow.   
~~


End file.
